


Tying Up Loose Ends

by nameless_moonchild



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Time Travel, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26599828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nameless_moonchild/pseuds/nameless_moonchild
Summary: After the Final Battle, Steve goes back to return the stones to their rightful timelines. When he returns to his own as an old man, Bucky and Sam have to find out the real reason behind it, and work together to get their Steve back.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	1. One Last Mission

It had been over a week since the Final Battle with Thanos, and all superheroes were now trying to get back to their regular life—or as much as they could. By now, each and every one of them was used to loss and pain, but it never got easier. After Tony and Natasha’s funeral, at Tony’s cabin, some of the Avengers went home—those who still had one, or at least somewhere they could stay at. Those who didn’t, remained at the cabin for a couple of days.

Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner were the ones that stayed. Bruce stayed so he could help them with returning the stones to the past, as he was now the only one who mastered the machine. With Sam considered dead for five years, his home in Washington DC was now gone, and though Bucky could have gone back to Wakanda, he chose to stay with Steve and Sam in the US. Steve offered them both a place at his Brooklyn apartment until they could figure out where to stay, but for now, they still had one last mission.

* * *

Bucky’s bedroom door was open when Steve reached the doorway. Bucky was sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed and Steve noticed he was perfectly positioned so his back wasn’t to the door but not completely turned away that he couldn’t look outside the window. He was staring off into the woods outside but with a face that showed Steve he wasn’t really seeing anything. Or maybe he was, just not what was outside. Steve was still getting used to this Bucky: the one who would grow quiet sometimes, staring off into the distance, face blank.

Steve knocked on the door even though it was open and Bucky didn’t startle, but his back tensed for a second, before he glanced at the door and saw who it was. Steve didn’t comment on the fact that Bucky hadn’t noticed him arriving, even though he hadn’t been trying to be quiet and Bucky’s hearing was just as enhanced as his was. Instead, he watched as Bucky relaxed and gave him a small and tired smile. Bucky’s dark hair was up in a half bun, and he hadn’t shaved in a while. Steve wasn’t really used to seeing him with his hair like this, but couldn’t deny that it looked good. Another thing Steve wasn’t used to seeing him in were the comfortable looking black sweatpants and red t-shirt he was wearing. The Bucky Barnes he grew up with always made sure to dress to impress, not for comfort. Well, Steve could understand the change. Bucky’s t-shirt allowed a clear view of his metal arm and Steve unthinkably stared at it. His fingers itched at his side and for the first time in a while Steve wanted to draw.

Steve realised he’d been watching Bucky and walked into the room, sitting sideways at the feet of the bed. He tried not to think about the fact that once he would not think twice before getting on the bed and sit right next to Bucky. He didn’t immediately say anything, looking around the room instead. When they assigned rooms, they’d decided it was best if Bucky stayed alone in one and Sam and Steve shared another one. Bucky wasn’t yet ready to share a room with anyone, and Steve wanted to give him his space. The rooms were identically decorated though, so there wasn’t much to look at that wasn’t different from the one he was staying at.

“Hey,” he finally greeted.

“Hey, Steve.” Bucky’s voice was soft and raspy. That was another thing Steve noticed was new. He’d been noticing a lot of these lately, and wondered if there was anything that Steve himself had different that Bucky had noticed.

Steve waited but Bucky didn’t say anything else. Once upon a time Bucky would already be in a tangent about some new obsession or other. Now he looked at Steve, expectantly. It had been years since the days before the war—well, the first they had been in, anyway, all the way back in the 40s—and yet when Bucky looked at him like that, Steve wondered, just like he used to back then, if Bucky could hear what he was thinking. He knew Bucky wouldn’t like what he was about to tell him, but hesitating was never in Steve’s blood, so he told him, “Sam and I were talking about taking the stones back tomorrow, and who’d be best to do it.”

“You volunteered, didn’t you.” said Bucky.

It wasn’t a question, but Steve answered anyway, “Yeah. It’s my responsibility.”

He was expecting a shake of head, a raised eyebrow or a firm ‘no, Steve’. Instead Bucky chuckled and raised his arms in a stretch. “I was expecting as much. It’s you we’re talking about here, after all.”

“C’mon, Buck. It’s not like it’s a majorly dangerous mission. I return the stones and come back. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“That’s the thing. I’ll always worry about you, punk.” Bucky smiled and looked down at his hands in his lap, before half muttering, “Though sometimes I wonder if I’m even allowed to, anymore.”

“Bucky,” Steve sighed and turned so he was fully sat on the bed, legs crossed as well. His knee touched Bucky’s and he stared at the contact point for a moment. When he looked back up, Bucky had his eyes on him again. Steve smiled reassuringly and told him, “You’ll always be allowed to worry. You just don’t have to. I’m not the sixteen-year-old sickly kid living in a Brooklyn shoebox apartment anymore.”

Bucky huffed, “Yeah, you’re not.” He agreed. Then with a smirk and an old Brooklyn accent he didn’t have anymore, he teased “ _Captain America_.”

“Shut up.” Steve nudged his knee half-heartedly with his own but didn’t try to fight the smile.

They sat in silence for a while. It felt familiar; comfortable. At one point, Bucky uncrossed his legs and reclined back on his hands in a smooth motion Steve hadn’t seen from him in a while. He saw the ghost of a young man: short hair, teasing smile playing on his lips, no shadows behind his eyes yet. Steve had missed these moments so much. He had to fight himself not to admit it out loud. He felt eyes on him and glanced up at Bucky, only to see him looking right back, a slight frown on his face.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Bucky asked.

“What?”

Bucky didn’t move from his position. “Something you’re not telling me. What is it?”

This time Steve did hesitate. He didn’t really know why he did, though. “When um… when Tony and I went back to 1970, to get the Tesseract, I saw– I saw Peggy.” For a second, he thought Bucky had tensed up, but when he checked, he was still sitting relaxed; his face was unreadable, though. “She looked older,” Steve continued, “younger than I last saw her, of course, but older than when we met her.”

“Still a looker, uh?” teased Bucky.

Steve rolled his eyes and didn’t comment. “I didn’t speak to her, I couldn’t. But–”

“You wish you had.” Bucky finished for him.

“It’s not that, it just– it made me miss her, that’s all. I hadn’t seen her in years.”

“Steve,” Bucky finally moved from his reclined position to the edge of the bed, his bare feet on the floor. “You know you’re allowed to miss her. Back then not many people had your back; she was one of the first to support you. And– I know your relationship with her was special to you.”

“No, Buck. I don’t mean it like that. I– I did love her, once, but it’s not like that anymore. She moved on, and so did I. When I woke up from the ice, I thought everyone was gone, but then I found out she wasn’t. We talked. A lot. Peggy was my friend; a good friend. I seemed to have a few of those for a while, too.” Steve knew his smile was self-deprecating, but he didn’t fight it. He was tired of missing people, tired of losing them.

“Are you thinking of talking to her this time? When you go back, I mean.”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think I should.”

“You know, Steve. You should be more selfish sometimes.”

Bucky glanced at the doorway just before a voice that sounded like Sam’s said, “I keep telling him that, maybe this time he’ll listen.”

“If he does it’s because I’m better at giving advice.” Bucky smirked and Steve rolled his eyes. He thought they’d be over this rivalry by now.

“We both know that’s not true, so I’m going to be the adult here and ignore you completely.” Sam leaned on the doorway with his arms crossed, seemingly comfortable to just stand there.

“How very grown-up of you.” Bucky answered immediately and despite his exasperation to see them acting like children, Steve would never admit it out loud how much he loved seeing Bucky content like this. He knew that to some extent, Sam did it on purpose, and he’d always be thankful for it. He liked that they’d become friends.

Steve sighed loudly before they could keep at it and got up from the bed but didn’t move away from it. “Did you come here just to banter?”

“I came to check if you two were done deciding who’s gonna go back.”

“I will.” declared Steve and Sam didn’t look one bit surprised.

“Well, dinner’s ready, then. If you’re interested.”

From behind Steve, Bucky’s voice came soft but excited, “I’m always interested in dinner.”

* * *

Bruce had already set up the time machine when the three of them arrived at the site. They had chosen to set it up in the woods by Tony’s cabin, as the Avengers Facility hadn’t yet been rebuilt and this was the only place with enough space to do it. Bruce had the briefcase with him, and before he passed it to Steve he opened it one last time, to make sure all the stones were safely inside, each in its own slot. When he reminded Steve, yet again, that he needed to go to the exact moment in time they had taken them from, in order to close all the branches of reality that they had opened and so no new ones would open, Steve chose not to remind him that he’d said it four times already.

“Don’t worry, Bruce. All branches will be closed.” he told him with a smile and looked up at Bruce, only to find him quietly studying the briefcase Steve had just closed.

“How do we have all this power in our hands, and still can’t bring her back?” He didn’t need to say a name for Steve to know he was talking about Natasha. “I mean, it’s the Infinity Stones—these hold the powers of the Universe, and yet she’s gone. I tried bringing her back, you know—when I brought the others. But it didn’t work.” Bruce sighed and Steve remembered Nat: her dyed blonde hair mostly red again after years of letting it grow without re-dying it; her eyes bloodshot from crying because there was nothing she could do to bring everyone back from the Snap. He was brought back to the present by Bruce’s voice saying in a defeated tone, “I miss her, man.”

“I know. I do, too.” Steve told him truthfully. Nat had been his friend for practically a decade. Had become one of his closest friends, and during those terrible five years they had been each other’s support. With another sigh, Bruce straightened up his gigantic, hulk body, and smiled; or tried to, anyway.

Sam and Bucky had stood a bit further back, and when Steve and Bruce went silent, Sam walked up to them, as Steve picked up the briefcase. “I could come with you, you know. You don’t have to do it alone.”

The two of them wandered to where Bucky was as they spoke, and Steve declined once again the offer for help. “You’re a good friend, Sam. But don’t worry; there isn’t much to it, I’ll just take them to their right time and then come back.”

“Right, and make sure you do.” It was Bucky who said it. By now they were standing in front of him and he was looking right at Steve, hands in his pockets.

“I will.” promised Steve; and meant it.

Sam walked away with a dramatic sigh that Steve couldn’t place the origin of. Neither of them watched him go. Bucky was still looking at Steve like he knew something Steve didn’t, and Steve, for the life of him, couldn’t look away.

“You know it’s only a few seconds for you, right? No matter how long it’ll take me to put them back.”

“I know.” said Bucky, and didn’t add anything else, but Steve still waited.

“You ready, Cap?” Bruce suddenly asked from behind them and a part of Steve wished he hadn’t. He turned to walk away, but then stopped. He turned back to Bucky.

“We should go somewhere, after this.” He had no idea where that came from, but he didn’t take it back. Bucky looked just as surprised as Steve felt, and then confused—even if his face barely showed it. Steve missed the time when Bucky’s whole face would show every emotion. Now Steve often struggled to read him; he never used to. “When I come back, let’s take a break from all this. I think we deserve it, yeah? Go somewhere, explore the world.”

Bucky raised one eyebrow, but he was smiling, “I’ve been to practically every country, Steve. We both have.”

“It’ll be different this time. No missions, no assignments.” He knew Sam and Bruce were waiting for him, not to mention listening to their exchange, but he didn’t care, he wanted to hear Bucky’s answer.

“All right,” Bucky shrugged but he was not looking at Steve as he was before, and his smile was bigger too, now. “We can go wherever you want.”

Steve beamed and finally turned away, only to see Sam with his arms crossed and smirking. “What?”

“Nothing.” Sam shook his head.

Steve got on the platform and clicked the helmet on.

“Ready, Cap?” Bruce asked again, and Steve nodded.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” As Bruce counted down from three, Bucky was the last thing Steve saw, before he disappeared.


	2. The Truth

Bucky didn’t take his eyes off Steve as he got on the machine’s platform. When Steve disappeared, Banner started counting once again, this time from five. When he got to one, Bucky heard the button being pressed but Steve didn’t appear.

“Where is he?” asked Sam from where he was standing as Banner frantically checked the computer and pressed the button again and again. Bucky said nothing. He looked between the machine and Banner and back, his heart pounding, hoping for Steve to show up in one of the times Banner clicked on that damn button.

“I don’t know. He should be here.”

“Well, bring him back!” Sam expressed what Bucky didn’t dare show, his face contorted in fear and worry.

“I’m trying!”

Banner and Sam were yelling at each other, and Bucky just stood there. He couldn’t stand looking at the empty machine anymore, so he turned around, and for a split second he wished he hadn’t. Bucky had been getting better at naming his emotions, and this one definitely felt like disappointment. There was an old man sitting on the bench by the lake, a few metres away from them. Despite the old age, the man was sitting with his back straight; his hair was still mostly blond, just on the side of white and Bucky knew exactly who he was. Bucky had known Steve since they were both children—he’d recognise that man anywhere, even with his back turned to him.

“Sam.” called Bucky and the shouting contest behind him ceased. He heard Sam’s distinguishable steps getting closer until he was standing next to Bucky. For a moment neither of them moved, they just stared at Steve’s back. Steve seemed content with just sitting there, not saying a word, and looking at the lake in front of him.

“Go ahead.” Bucky told Sam.

“You sure?” asked Sam.

Compared to Bucky, Sam had never been very good at hiding his emotions. Bucky ignored the look he was giving him and tried for a smile that he knew didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes.”

Sam didn’t insist and instead walked until he was standing near to Steve. Bucky’s smile slipped off his face as soon as he was out of Sam’s sight and he considered leaving, but didn’t.

“Steve?” Bucky heard Sam ask. From where Bucky was standing he could hear them perfectly.

“Hi, Sam.” Steve finally half turned to Sam, a pleased smile on his lined face. Bucky couldn’t see Sam’s face, but he heard the smile in his voice, when he asked Steve what had happened.

Steve’s explanation was short and simple, and it was all Bucky needed to know that, despite what Steve had said earlier, he still went back and married Peggy Carter. Bucky wondered if he had lied, sitting on the bed next to Bucky, when he’d told him he’d moved on, or if he truly had believed he had. Bucky chose not to think of the conversation they had just before Steve got on the platform. He knew who Steve chose and he accepted that decision, though he was having a hard time being okay with it.

“I’m just sad that I now live in a world without Captain America.” Sam’s voice broke through Bucky’s thoughts and he went back to watching them.

Next to Steve’s leg was a big round object, which he picked up at Sam’s words. It was inside a worn-out brown bag, but Bucky still knew exactly what it was. Steve opened the bag and looked at it for a second, then glanced up at Sam and said, “Try it on.”

When Sam turned around to look at Bucky, he wasn’t smiling anymore; his face was serious, and Bucky read the question that wasn’t asked. He gave Sam a half smile, not a forced one this time, and nodded. With one last glance at Steve, Sam picked up the Captain America shield and put it on, testing the weight.

“How does it feel?” asked Steve.

“Like it’s someone else’s.”

Steve told him, “It isn’t.” and Bucky agreed.

* * *

During the following week, they moved Steve back to his apartment in Brooklyn, and found a two bedroom one for Sam and Bucky to share not far from his. Being part of the Avengers initiative had its perks and finding readily available apartments where they wanted or needed them was apparently one of them. Bucky wouldn’t complain. They had someone shop new clothes for Steve, as his old ones wouldn’t fit him anymore, and Steve seemed somewhat happy to have someone do the shopping for him. Bucky couldn’t help but notice the Steve he knew would rather struggle to go himself than bother some unknown individual to do it for him. That night Sam told him the exactly same thing and joked, “I guess age does change everyone.”

Bucky forced a chuckle and quietly agreed, “Yeah, I guess it does.”

In the weeks that followed, Bucky and Sam made sure to visit Steve a few times, but couldn’t spend much time with him, as much as they tried. Despite Steve having retired, Sam hadn’t, and had missions and meetings he needed to attend. And despite Bucky not being officially an Avenger, it was assumed he’d assist Sam on the missions, and with Steve being old and retired, Bucky didn’t feel the need to deny it.

Bucky used the few times they had free to watch and study this new Steve. He was like a completely different person, though only Bucky seemed to realise it. He saw Sam interact with Steve like nothing had changed, and Steve’s memory seemed just as perfect as it used to be. He remembered a lot of things from past years like they had happened the week before.

Despite his just as perfect memory, though, Steve didn’t mention the trip he had talked about before the solo mission, not even in acknowledgment. Bucky didn’t want him to apologise for his choice, but he secretly wished Steve would say… _something_. In fact, Steve barely spoke to Bucky, and when he did, it sounded slightly forced and fake. When they visited him, Steve didn’t seem to show much discomfort when speaking to Sam, he even looked amused, most of the times, and Bucky tried not to let it get to him.

Around a month after the events by the lake, Sam had a solo mission and Bucky decided to go see Steve on his own. Steve didn’t look surprised to see him there alone—which meant Sam had let him know about the mission—but Bucky was a master at reading Steve, and could see he wished Bucky hadn’t come. This time it truly hurt. They sat in silence for a while, each with a cup of tea in hand, but it wasn’t comfortable like it used to be. At one point, Bucky sensed Steve watching him, like he was trying to figure him out, and did his best to hide every emotion from Steve; it came easy to him after all.

Bucky thought about the conversation they’d had, back at Tony’s cabin, a few weeks ago and wondered if he should bring it up. Before he could talk himself out of it, he was already opening his mouth. “You ended up doing it after all, huh.” He didn’t look at Steve. The window didn’t offer a great view, but he looked outside nonetheless.

“Do what?” Bucky could tell Steve was trying to sound nonchalant, and his hurt dug deeper, his disappointment returning. Still, he didn’t show it. He tried his best to push it down; it had been years for Steve, _he could have forgotten it_ , he told himself. And even he knew he was lying to himself.

“Marry Carter.” Bucky attempted a light-hearted tone and thought he almost succeeded. He heard Steve let out an almost silent breath and turned his eyes back to him. Steve was relaxed now, and smiling.

“Yeah,” Steve’s smile was dopey and genuine, but _off_ , somehow. Bucky studied his face but couldn’t figure out what was different. “Peg’s the love of my life, you know. Couldn’t let the opportunity go.”

Bucky felt his throat go dry and sipped the tea, which had turned lukewarm by now. Talking about Peggy seemed to relax Steve enough for him to open up. Suddenly he was talking about everything from the years he spent with her. To Bucky, Steve was still his best friend, but he had a sudden desire to just get up and leave. He was about to make an excuse to do just that, when Steve mentioned Tony Stark. His tone was still light, and he seemed to be speaking without much thought.

“I’m glad I followed Stark’s advice, you know.” With one last gulp, Steve emptied his mug and grinned at Bucky. It looked completely different from Steve’s smiles Bucky was used to. He realised he didn’t know this man at all. The years Steve spent in the past changed him to someone practically unrecognisable to Bucky.

“Stark’s advice?” he parroted weakly.

“To get a life.” clarified Steve and Bucky snapped his head in Steve’s direction so fast he wasn’t sure how it didn’t fall off. Steve wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the wall like he was seeing something else entirely. “He told me I should, before I went back to the past.” He chuckled and looked back at Bucky with a smirk. “Maybe I should pay him a visit and thank him.”

Bucky was at lost for words. Steve could very well have forgotten his and Bucky’s conversation, back in Bucky’s room; could have forgotten about telling Bucky he didn’t love Peggy anymore, not like that; could even have forgotten about them taking a break together when he came back. It had happened over fifty years ago for Steve, after all. But one thing Bucky was sure of was that Steve would never, in a million years, forget Stark’s death. And he would, most definitely, not be talking about him with a smirk on his lips. He had been right, there was something off with Steve, and he didn’t like it. On a whim, Bucky decided to test him.

“Maybe you should.” he told him with a shrug, drinking the last of his tea with a gulp, and put his mug down on the coffee table. “Sam and I could come with.”

“Think he’ll recognise me like this?” Steve’s smirk had changed to a teasing smile, and Bucky realised it suddenly. This wasn’t Steve. Whoever he was, he was very good at pretending to be him, but Bucky knew Steve better than anyone alive.

Bucky didn’t break character as he pretended to chuckle and looked Steve up and down. “I don’t know, but I’d love to see his reaction. He might know about it by now, though. Wonder why he hasn’t called.” Bucky felt sick.

“Yeah, but don’t call him. Wanna surprise him and all that.” Steve’s smile was two parts mischievous and one part something Bucky couldn’t recognise at all.

After that he didn’t take long to make up a convincing excuse to leave, promising to pick him up as soon as Sam was back from his mission to go see Stark.

To his surprise Steve turned to him when he was almost at the door, “Hey, Bucky,” Bucky knew himself to be a good actor. There was no way Steve had suspected anything, but he still panicked for half a second, before he composed himself and turned to Steve. “We should do this more often.”

“Yeah, we should. See you later, Steve.” Was the last thing Bucky said, before he finally left and closed the door behind him.

* * *

As soon as Bucky returned home after his talk with Steve—who _wasn’t_ Steve—, he checked every corner of his and Sam’s apartment for any signs of bugging. When he found it empty of anything, he immediately called Sam, asking him when he’d be home. He had been expecting a teasing remark from Sam as an answer, but Bucky’s tone had probably betrayed his panic, and Sam immediately knew something was wrong. He gave Sam a brief explanation over the phone and hung up before Sam could protest or even say anything else.

Two days later, Sam walked in the front door as Bucky was washing the last of his dishes and demanded a detailed explanation. “You and Fury must get along like a house on fire. Whoever told you that ‘Hurry up, then, cause Steve has most likely been kidnapped’ was an acceptable briefing lied, Barnes. Now shoot. What’s going on?”

Sam didn’t believe him at first. But after Bucky recounted everything that happened, including the moments he had found Steve to be slightly off, Sam finally believed him. He even admitted to there being moments where he himself had thought Steve to be—not himself. Bucky was relieved; he’d secretly expected Sam to dismiss his suspicion.

“Who else knows?” asked Sam. Bucky was on the sofa now, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped together. Sam was pacing back and forth, arms crossed and face set in a frown.

“No one. You’re the only one I trust with this.” Sam seemed surprised at his admission, but Bucky had meant it and didn’t take it back.

“Okay, we need a plan.” Sam finally stopped pacing and moved his hands to his waist. “We have to find out who he is and what he wants.”

“And where Steve is.” Bucky finished for him.

* * *

Sam and Bucky decided the best course of action would be not to inform the other Avengers of what they had figured out. They didn’t know who else was in on it, and who even the man pretending to be Steve was. They couldn’t trust anyone else, not yet. Bucky had told Steve—well, _fake_ -Steve—they’d pick him up when Sam was back from his mission, so the day after Sam returned, they put their plan in action. Three days later, they were at Steve’s door, both trying their damn best not to seize the man right then and there. Fake-Steve—cause really, what was Bucky supposed to call him?—didn’t seem to suspect anything. When he saw them at his doorstep, he just put on his jacket and closed his front door on his way out without a word. Bucky had been worried for Sam, but he seemed to be holding up all right, considering.

Sam drove them to Manhattan, where a helicopter was waiting for them at the top of a building. They explained Stark was out of New York and had sent them the helicopter so they could go to him instead. They had expected scepticism from the imposter’s part, but to their surprise fake-Steve shrugged and told them, “Yeah, that sounds like Stark.”

Neither Sam nor Bucky tried to make conversation the whole time they were in the sky and fake-Steve seemed just as content to sit in silence. It took them just over three hours to get to their destination. Just over the three hour mark, Bucky looked at his watch and discreetly took the syringe he had brought with him out of his inside pocket and hoped for their plan to work, because that was the only one he had. This specific part of the plan had been tricky to, well, plan. They didn’t know who the old guy was, or even if he was just like any other guy or enhanced. For all they knew the sedative wouldn’t even work and they’d be screwed. They thought about using a dose that would work on real-Steve but quickly discarded the idea, since they didn’t want the guy to die on them. Instead, they used a dose that would not kill an ordinary guy but could at least sedate Steve for just under an hour. And then they hoped for the best, really.

Fake-Steve was sitting in the middle, looking somewhere in front of him. Without glancing at him, Bucky raised his arm and, in a flash, stuck the needle in the old man’s neck emptying the syringe before the man could even react. The imposter was asleep in seconds. Sam checked his pulse—alive—and sent a message on his phone. Seven minutes later they were landing. Bucky picked up the old man and put him over his metal shoulder. As soon as the three of them were out, the pilot took off once again. There wasn’t a building in sight, only desert.

“Where is he?” asked Bucky, looking around.

“He’ll be here.” No sooner had Sam answered than a voice sounded just behind them.

“Took you long enough.” They turned to see Fury standing there. He looked at the man Bucky was now carrying on his shoulder. “That him?”

Sam, who apparently had a death wish, answered, “No, we just picked a random old dude on the way.”

Fury ignored him and turned away. Bucky glanced at Sam, who shrugged. Without another word, they followed Fury.

* * *

When deciding on a plan, back at their apartment, Sam and Bucky had talked themselves in circles, again and again, trying to find a solution. After over an hour of nothing, Sam had the idea of just telling Nick Fury what was going on, assuring Bucky he’d have what it took to help them. Bucky had been sceptical at first but when they met the guy, Bucky could tell why Sam trusted him. Fury was all business. He didn’t doubt them for a second and offered solutions to every problem they presented.

Sam and Bucky informed him of the situation, and the three of them quickly formed a plan. They couldn’t take the old man to the Raft, as it was government property and they couldn’t just use it as they pleased. Fury had told them he knew of a place and that they just needed to take fake-Steve there. He also provided them with the syringe they had used on the old man.

After walking for ten minutes, Fury finally stopped at a hidden entrance that even their trained eyes wouldn’t have found without help. Fury put on a series of codes and once the door opened, they walked down several stone steps and arrived at an underground facility that looked half-dark and deserted, and, Bucky dared say, even abandoned. Bucky noticed the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the ground and on one of the walls and commented, “I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone.”

“It is,” Fury answered from a few steps ahead. He didn’t stop or glanced at the wall; just kept leading them as he spoke. “This is one of the last few facilities I still have access to. Close to no one knows about it, as it hadn’t been in use for a while even before S.H.I.E.L.D. was taken down.”

They quickly reached an area with cells that didn’t look like they were made for regular people. Sam looked like he wanted to make a comment but didn’t, and so they walked in silence past the confinement area. The room Fury took them to had a single chair in the middle and nothing else. Bucky sat the man on the chair, resisting the urge to just let him fall off his shoulder. Sam worked with him at tying fake-Steve with ropes strong enough to hold an enhanced person, just in case. Fury just stood there and studied him. When they were done, they stood up and did the same. It wouldn’t take much longer for him to wake up.

As it turned out, the man stayed unconscious for around forty-five minutes longer. Bucky did the math and calculated the sedative had put him asleep for an hour and a half; longer than it would take for Steve or himself to wake up, but definitely not enough for a regular person.

They watched fake-Steve wake up and realise he was tied to the chair. He looked confused for a second, and Bucky saw his eyes widen just slightly when they landed on Fury.

Fury, as it seemed, had noticed the same thing, “You seem surprised to see me, Cap.”

“I’m more surprised to be tied down, if I’m being honest.” He didn’t look panicked, but his eyes didn’t leave Fury. Bucky could tell how much wary he was of the man.

“Well, that usually happens when you pretend to be someone you’re not, you see. You’re found out, and tied to a chair.” Fury was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, as if he were having a regular conversation.

“What? What do you mean pretend to be someone else?” Steve looked so bewildered and innocent Bucky’s first instinct was to just untie him and take him out of there. He fought it, planting his feet on the ground and looking away. He saw Sam glancing at him by the corner of his eyes but ignored him.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Sam suddenly. He didn’t yell, or move from his position, but his voice was steel and Bucky had never seen him as furious as he looked now.

“Sam, it’s me. Steve Rogers.” His voice was frail from age, but he also looked betrayed. If Bucky hadn’t known any better, he’d believe this man a hundred percent.

“No, you’re not.” It was Bucky who answered. He could hear it take on a tone it hadn’t taken since it was Nazis sitting on that chair—or lying on the dirty ground—and Steve next to him, the rest of the Commandos on watch duty.

“Bucky–”

Bucky didn’t give him time to speak; he looked him right in the eye and told him, his voice frigid, “Prove it.”

“What? Bucky, c’mon, it’s me, you know it.”

The old man’s voice was taking on a desperate edge, but still, Bucky didn’t let it get to him. “Show me you’re him.”

“What do you want me to say, something from our childhood? Bucky, that was a lifetime ago.”

Surprising everyone else in the room, Sam laughed. “Are you seriously implying Steve would not remember his childhood?”

It was dead silence for a beat. The three of them watched the man and the man watched them in return. “I don’t care what you tell me. Just show me you’re him.” Bucky demanded, even knowing for sure that he couldn’t, because he wasn’t.

“There was this woman living next door. No kids, husband died in the war.” fake-Steve started, and for some reason Bucky held his breath. He searched for the woman in his memories and found her, though barely. Somewhere in the 20s. She’d lived next to Steve and his mum’s apartment. Not much older than Sarah Rogers, but not a very nice lady. “She’d bake this fruitcake. All the time. It was the only one she knew how to make. Never told this to anyone but you, but I _hated_ that cake. Couldn’t stand to eat it after the third time she made it.”

He looked at Bucky as he spoke and when he finished, he still didn’t look away.

“Is this the newspapers in your shoes all over again?” asked Sam, exasperated.

“No,” Bucky replied without taking his eyes off the imposter; his voice calm and steady, “because Steve loved that cake. He didn’t like Mrs. O’Neal very much, but he loved her cake. And she only baked it once, before she moved to the South.”

The silence that followed was so heavy Bucky almost felt it in his bones. Suddenly, the man looked down, finally breaking eye contact, and sighed. His whole posture changed in seconds, and when he looked back up, he was unrecognisable, even if he was still wearing Steve’s face. His face seemed to naturally contort into a bitter expression.

“Well,” the man shrugged, tone resigned. “It was worth a try. You see, I really did hate that cake. But you were already suspicious, weren’t you, or you wouldn’t have brought me here. Wherever this is. So,” he looked between the three of them casually, as if they were all long-time friends. “What gave it away?”

Bucky considered not answering, and by the look on Sam’s face he didn’t seem very willing to, either. Fury just seemed happy to let them lead the way. Bucky glanced back at the man, who was openly waiting for an answer.

“Stark’s dead. Steve of all people wouldn’t have forgotten that.”

The man sighed again and swore. “That little shit.” Bucky didn’t know who he was referring to, real-Steve or Tony Stark.

“Who are you?” Sam repeated. Bucky was still aware of Fury’s presence behind them, but he didn’t speak once.

“I’m Steve Rogers.” The man looked at Sam dead on, as if daring him to deny it.

Still, Sam did. “Bullshit.”

“My name is Steve Rogers. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 4th, 1918.” He didn’t give them time to interject, before he continued. “Never met my father; mother died when I was 5—mugged on her way home from her shift. Mrs. O’Neal lived alone and so she took me in. We moved to Jersey, a few years later, where we lived until she died. I was sixteen. Never met a James Barnes. Lived alone until the war came, and was recruited by the only Organization that gave me work.”

“What, the SSR?” asked Bucky.

Fake-Steve gave him a disgusted look and then lifted his chin with a proud look in his eye. “HYDRA.”

Bucky sucked in a breath, taking a step back before he could help himself. The idea of a Steve Rogers ever working for HYDRA was impossible for his mind to conceive.

“You’re from a different branch of reality.” Fury finally spoke and walked forward until he was standing between Bucky and Sam. The two of them turned their eyes on him, but he was looking at the man sitting down. “Aren’t you?”

“We had a Nicholas Fury too, you know.” Fake-Steve didn’t seem as scared anymore. He looked at Fury as if he weren’t tied down to a chair; as if he didn’t look as old as ninety-five. “Killed him myself. Shot between the eyes; dead before he hit the ground.”

Fury didn’t seem worried. In fact, he looked amused at the man’s attempt to intimidate him. “Where’s Steve Rogers? _Our_ Steve Rogers.” Bucky respected the matter-of-fact tone.

“Well, if he hasn’t died by now—or killed, for his mouth. Not much different from me, is he?—then he’s still locked up where I left him.”

“And where is that?” Sam asked when Bucky was about to step forward to do some damage. He was glad Sam was the one doing the questioning. He was afraid if he moved any part of his body, it wouldn’t be his mouth.

“DC. But not here.” He smiled then and it was ugly; a smile Bucky never saw on his Steve.

“How did you get here?” Now that the man was answering every question, Sam kept at it, one after the other. “And how did he get there?”

“Well, I would say it’s a long story, but it isn’t. Not really.” Fake-Steve shrugged. Bucky wanted to hit him—even if he was an old man.

He decided to finally open his mouth, “Either way, we don’t have much time, and I don’t have much patience, so how about you tell us?” He took a step forward and for a heartbeat he saw fear in the man’s eyes. There one second, gone the next.

“Where do you want me to start, sweetheart?”

“How about the beginning?” Sam offered sarcastically. The man sighed and finally started talking.


	3. A Journey to The Past

It took Steve three whole weeks to finish his mission. It should have been an easy mission, and it was, to some extent. But some parts had also been tricky, and as much as he wasn’t a spy, there _had_ been a lot of hiding and infiltrating. Nat would be proud, really.

The last stone he took back was the Tesseract. Once again, Steve had found himself in New Jersey, in 1970. And once again, he’d found himself looking at Peggy Carter, though this time, she too had found herself looking at him. For a moment Steve had wondered if it would cause a branch of reality to open, it probably would but he hadn’t changed anything of significance for it to be at risk. Peggy had looked at him as if she were seeing a ghost, and wasn’t he, for her?

He talked to her, then; as he hadn’t last time. _You know, Steve. You should be more selfish sometimes_ , Bucky had told him, and maybe he was right. Maybe he should. So Peggy and Steve talked; her office door closed. He told her the truth: who he was and what he was doing, and by some miracle she believed him. He didn’t tell her anything from the future; she’d asked him not to. They mainly spoke of the past. As they spoke, Steve was reminded of why he had loved her, once.

“I married.” Peggy told him, “You were dead, Steve. You _are_ dead.”

“I know, Pegs.” He smiled at her, soft and true.

“I love him. I really do.” And Steve knew that too. “But I truly did love you, once. And I think, if you hadn’t–” Her voice broke and Steve realised he’d never seen her like this, only ever heard her voice shake from tears once, when his aircraft was falling. A dance, they had planned. Steve never got around to learn to dance.

“I know,” Steve repeated, and stepped forward, putting his arms around her and embracing her. It was the first time they held each other like this. “I think so, too.”

They let go of each other and Steve put his hand on her cheek for a heartbeat, then another, and took his hand away. He stepped back.

“Steve,” Peggy’s voice was barely above a whisper now, but they were still close enough to hear each other. “Are you alone, my darling, where you came from?”

Steve felt a smile form on his lips. He thought of his friends—his family, really—back in the present waiting for him. Without him meaning to, someone crossed his mind, and he answered honestly, “No, Peggy.”

Peggy must have seen something in his face, or his smile, because her face softened. “You met someone, didn’t you?” She asked.

Steve met a lot of people, over the years, but he didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. He smiled again and repeated, with a shake of his head, “No.” He paused. “We’ve known each other a long, long time.”

He knew she wouldn’t understand, and indeed, confusion formed on her beautiful face. She didn’t question it further, however. “Then treasure them, Steve. I see a lot of sadness in your face, but I also see a lot of happiness. And maybe that is wishful thinking; maybe I just truly want you to be happy, but– I’d rather believe it isn’t.”

“It isn’t.” Steve confirmed. And it wasn’t, he realised, it really, truly wasn’t.

Before he’d left her office, Steve had ended up telling Peggy about Bucky being in captivity with HYDRA. The logical part of him told him he probably shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t stand the idea of returning to the present knowing Bucky was still captive in this reality. He would’ve hated himself if he’d had the opportunity to help freeing him earlier and chose to stay quiet instead. His Bucky was free, now, but that didn’t mean Steve wouldn’t help this Bucky, too.

With his mission complete, Steve had just one last Pym particle left for his trip back home. He thought about the conversation he had with Bucky just before his mission, and smiled, his mind already coming up with a few places he wanted to visit. Inserting the exact date he had to return to, Steve clicked on the button on his hand. In seconds, a red and white suit replaced the clothes he was wearing, and he disappeared, going quantum.

* * *

The first thing Steve realised when he got his bearings was that one: he was not standing on the time machine platform he was supposed to appear on; and second: there was no one there waiting for him. He seemed to be in the woods by Tony’s cabin, but nothing of what they had set up was there anymore. Had he gotten the date wrong? He checked the little watch on his wrist and confirmed that the date and time were both correct. With no other option but to check his surroundings, Steve started for the cabin—and found nothing. Tony’s fancy wooden cabin was nowhere to be seen. No cars, either. Steve had no Pym particles left that he could use, and he had no way to contact anyone.

Getting off the woods and walk to a populated area would be a challenge for anyone, but Steve squared his shoulders and started in what he knew was the right direction. Tony’s cabin was in Fairburn, Georgia, and it took him two hours to get to a neighbourhood where Steve hoped he could ask for some type of assistance.

What Steve wasn’t expecting was for people to completely ignore the doorbell or the knock on the door. If it weren’t for the shadows of people peeking behind the curtains, he would think the whole neighbourhood was deserted. Whoever had been on the street when he arrived wasn’t there anymore. At last someone opened the door, though the woman seemed to be distracted with something. She shouted something at someone behind her that Steve couldn’t see and then finally turned to him. She froze immediately as she locked eyes with him, and probably as discretely as she could muster glanced up and down the road only to find it empty.

“Mr. Rogers, hello. How can I help you?” The woman looked downright frightened and Steve instinctively tried to make himself smaller. He was still wearing the janitor uniform he’d changed into back in New Jersey.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. Could I use your phone?” The woman’s eyes widened at that and she nodded quickly, stepping aside to let him in. “Thank you.”

“Who is it, Traci?” There was a man watching TV on the sofa when Steve entered the living room. Just like the woman at the door, the man completely froze when he saw Steve and immediately turned the television off.

“Sorry to disturb.” Steve tried to smile. He couldn’t understand why everyone seemed to be afraid of him. Did he change something in the past that altered the present? No, that couldn’t be it, Bruce had told him that couldn’t happen. “I won’t take long.” The man nodded and didn’t say a word.

“Um,” Steve turned to the woman standing behind him, she seemed to regret having made any noise but he smiled at her and she continued, “I, um, I have something on the stove. I’ll– I’ll leave you to it, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve, of course, could tell she was lying. Most likely, she just wanted to get away from him. He nodded in understanding and let her go. The landline was on the wall by the door, and not wanting to waste any more time, he picked it up and started marking a number.

The phone rang three times before someone answered. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice and definitely not who Steve needed. “Hello? Who is this?”

Still, he tried. “Hello, can I speak to Sam Wilson, please?”

“Excuse me? Is this a prank? Don’t you have anything better to do than waste people’s lives?” and with a huff, the woman hung up.

Steve sighed. It was worth a try. He was about to mark another number when he realised he had no one else to contact. Bucky didn’t have a mobile phone, and he’d had other ways to contact the others without needing their number so far. He turned back to the man, who was still sitting frozen on the sofa. “Well, thank you for your time. I’ll be leaving now.” The man nodded quickly and Steve left without another word. He’d have to find another way to get in touch with the others.

As soon as he opened the front door, Steve saw no less than six black SUVs parked in front of the house, and several men and women dressed in all black pointing guns at him. He noticed they weren’t regular guns. They’d come prepared specifically for him. The woman inside must’ve called someone, he guessed. But then someone exited one of the cars and Steve felt a frown form on his face.

He was looking at himself. The hair was slightly longer, but it was definitely his face. “Who are you?” he called. But as soon as he spoke he realised what must have happened. Instead of home, he must have gone to a different point in time. He wasn’t sure when, though, and he couldn't exactly ask. The suit had showed the right date, but maybe he’d done something wrong.

“That,” the man that looked like him stepped forward, his hands behind his back “I should be asking _you_ , don’t you think?”

Steve squared his shoulders and stepped forward as well. It wouldn’t be the first time he fought himself.

“We were all perplexed, me most of all, I gotta say, when we saw your face in the footage.” At Steve’s confused face, the man pointed to the wall above the front door of the house he’d just left, and Steve noticed a tiny camera there. It wasn’t the typical camera a homeowner installs in their own house either; it was a discrete one, barely visible. Either his luck was incredibly bad, and he’d chosen the only house with a camera, or all the houses in the neighbourhood were monitored. “Now, who are _you_ , and what are you doing here?” the other Steve looked him up and down, “And why are you dressed as a janitor?”

Steve was about to open his mouth and bullshit his way out of the situation when he noticed the man’s neck. Just above the black collar of his t-shirt was a small round tattoo. It was a black skull with tentacles, on a red background. With a quick glance he checked the others’ necks and confirmed they all had it, in the exact same place. It was the HYDRA symbol.

Blood rushed to Steve’s head and in a moment of impulsivity he moved forward in a flash and punched the blond man right in the face. With both the surprise and the impact, the man almost fell, but held himself at the last minute. Steve didn’t have a chance to punch him again, before a shot sounded and he went down immediately.

* * *

Steve came to in what looked like a cell. The floor was cement, as were the walls, and there was no bed, or chair—or anything, really—in it. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and when he tried to move his arms, he found them fixed to said wall in honest-to-God _chains_.

There was a sound of a door opening somewhere in front of him and he looked over, finding the other himself entering the cell. “Let’s try again, shall we?” he started, and Steve rolled his eyes at the tone. He wondered if he sounded as much of a jackass as the man standing in front of him. He hoped he didn’t, because he wanted to punch the man again, so, so bad. “Who are you?”

Steve stared at the man and didn’t so much as open his mouth.

After two days of trying to get him to speak, without any success, the other Steve seemed to be getting impatient. He also seemed to like punching people, as that’s the only thing he’d done to get Steve to talk.

“All right,” Rogers—because calling him ‘other Steve’ was exhausting, even to Steve—sighed as he finally realised Steve wouldn’t talk, besides the smartass remarks he always had on ready. “How about we try something else? This one’s a prototype, but maybe it’ll work.” Without another word he left the room, but not even two minutes later another HYDRA agent came in and sedated Steve once again.

This time, when Steve awoke, he was lying down on some table. There was an uncomfortable helmet on his head and he could barely see with the white light above him pointed at his face. He tried to speak, but there was something in his mouth that didn’t let him. Somewhere around him he heard his own voice say, “We’ll see how much you’ll be able to keep to yourself with this.” Then, seemingly to someone else, though Steve couldn’t see anyone, Rogers ordered, “Turn it on.”

Suddenly Steve felt excruciating pain around his head and realised what the thing in his mouth was for. He didn’t scream, but it was a close call. As the electric shocks he felt in his head got stronger, he groaned and started to see black spots in his vision. Then he started seeing things: images, scenes—from his childhood, then recent past. He realised what they were doing and tried his very best to block every memory in his mind. To his surprise it seemed to work.

“What is he doing? Why are the images blurred, doctor?”

“I don’t know, sir. I think he’s blocking us out.”

“How is that possible?”

“This machine is a prototype, sir. It’s a miracle it even works.”

Steve could hear two different voices speaking but he could barely understand what they were saying, or who was speaking. After what seemed like an eternity, the shocks stopped.

“Is there anything we can take from it?” now that the pain was over he could tell it had still been Rogers speaking. He didn’t recognise the second voice, however.

“Yes, sir. He blocked a lot but not everything.”

“Good.” Steve heard, before he passed out for a third time.


	4. The Rescue Mission

With a sneer and a roll of his neck, fake-Steve told them everything. He seemed to realise there was no way for him to succeed in whatever he’d come here to do, and as most HYDRA agents often did, he was eager to brag about his accomplishments. He told them about how he grew up, and how HYDRA had found him in New York, in 1943, and gave him a position in their ranks. He didn’t fight in the war, like Bucky’s Steve had; instead he made himself available for experiments. There had been a Dr. Zola in his reality too, and apparently he hadn’t had a Bucky Barnes to experiment on in 1943, as Bucky himself had been. Instead Zola had used this Steve, injecting him with the prototype of the super serum Bucky was injected with in this reality.

Bucky realised that nothing from this man’s life was even similar to how his Steve’s had been. From what he understood, for a branch of reality to be formed, something in the past must change. Bucky thought about the earliest thing that was different and realised he’d told them earlier that his mother had been killed when he was five. Steve’s mum hadn’t died until he was eighteen, of tuberculosis.

In fake-Steve’s reality HYDRA was thriving. Few dared to go against them, and those who did would barely survive. The Avengers were apparently some type of vigilantes, rather than the government supported initiative they were in this reality, and there were only a handful of them that were still alive, to boot. Tony Stark was HYDRA, and just as smart as he’d been in this reality. He was also, apparently, just as dead.

Turns out, fake-Steve’s mission had been to come to this reality to get this Tony Stark and take him back, to finish the machine he’d been halfway through inventing when Pepper Potts aka Rescue, had killed him.

“If you looked through Steve’s memories, how didn’t you know Stark was dead here too?” Sam asked him.

“That bastard blocked most of his memories, remember? God, you’re just as stupid as the Wilson from my reality.” He sighed and explained, “We saw Stark in his memories. Some of them were pretty recent, and we saw nothing about him dying. We assumed he was alive.”

He looked at them, as if expecting more questions. Bucky had one, “You say time is parallel on both realities. You look old, but not exactly a hundred and five. Did you spend all those years under the ice as well?”

Fake-Steve practically spit, “Who do you take me for? I saw that imbecile going down with the aircraft in his memories,” he scoffed, as if remembering said memory. “But why would I sacrifice myself for those people? Would they do it for me? Or even for him? Besides, the Schmidt of my reality had other priorities than bombing all of North America.

“I didn’t crash a plane into the Arctic, but I _was_ frozen for decades. After the war, Zola was at a standstill with the serum. Germany won the war, thanks to HYDRA, but Zola still didn’t have everything he needed to complete it. Not with Erskin dead. So he put me and Peggy under cryo-freeze. We stayed there for a few decades and then on and off as he needed us.”

“Then why _do_ you look like a ninety year old?”

The imposter grimaced at that, “Well, Stark was working on that machine before he died a few years ago, so, we were left with a few… issues. We were testing it before I came here and instead of passing me through time, it passed time through me. Idiot bastards that were supposed to be smart couldn’t turn me back to normal, so I guess I’m stuck like this, now.”

“Peggy?” Bucky asked, remembering the story fake-Steve told them.

“That part,” he said, a smug smile on his lips, “is true. HYDRA recruited her after the war, and well.” He shrugged in a ‘the rest is history’ type of way.

Whoever changed Steve’s past didn’t stop there, apparently. There’s no way the Peggy Carter Bucky knew would involve herself with HYDRA.

“Enough chit-chat.” Fury suddenly said. “How can we get Rogers back?”

* * *

Fake-Steve Rogers ended up not being of much help on that front. With nothing to lose, he refused to help them any further. So they left them there, and had no other choice but to contact Bruce Banner to help them. Banner had been shocked about the revelation, but quickly put himself at work to find a way of travelling between parallel realities. Meanwhile, they contacted Hank Pym to request more particles for them and some more for Steve to be able to return. Bruce ended up finding a solution and had to explain it to them a million times, for them to understand, but they ended up somewhat getting it.

Two days later, they were ready. This time, they set up the machine right there in the desert, in nowhere, Arizona. Sam had given the idea of setting it up underground, inside the SHIELD facility, but Bruce told them there was the possibility that the facility didn’t exist in the other reality, and they could die, trying to appear underground. So they did it aboveground instead. Sam and Bucky suited up and got on the platform. Banner counted down from three, and they disappeared.

* * *

They appeared on the exact same place as they left. There was no one there but the two of them so they assumed it had worked. Sam had brought his new Captain America suit, which had been altered to fit the wings from when he had been the Falcon, and also brought the shield. Bucky was armed to his teeth, with knives and his rifle, but if it came to it, he always had his metal arm.

They didn’t have a way of contacting the Avengers of this reality, so they’d have to leave the desert first. Hank Pym had also given them a small disc thing Bucky couldn’t begin to name, that he’d seen Scott Lang shrink and enlarge things with in the past. Fury had given the idea of shrinking a Quinjet so they could have a way of getting off the desert when they came to this reality. Sam put the tiny Quinjet on the ground and they both stepped back until they thought it’d be safe to enlarge it without it crushing them. Bucky threw the small disc at it and the Quinjet immediately got back to its regular size. Bucky loved the future.

“I love the future.” He told Sam.

Sam rolled his eyes and walked for the Quinjet. They could both pilot it, but Sam ended up doing it, heading east towards Washington DC.

They thought it would be difficult to find the Avengers of this reality, but it took only a few minutes after they’d landed and shrank the Quinjet for them to realise they were being followed. Pretending they didn’t know, they guided the person to some abandoned buildings, where they could face them without attracting too much attention.

Natasha Romanoff, as it turned out, was very much alive in this reality, and was part of the Avengers team. Her hair was long, in a lazy side braid, and bright red. Last time Bucky had seen her she’d had it short and blonde. They tried to explain to her who they were and what their mission was, but Natasha didn’t believe them. They had been expecting that. She muttered something to her wrist, and a minute later Clint Barton dropped from somewhere, right next to her. Besides Natasha, who had been trained by the Red Room Academy, only Clint Barton was able to hide his position from Bucky, as he was the only other sniper in the group. He couldn’t hide his surprised face from them, though. This Clint looked different from the Clint Bucky knew: his hair was more dishevelled and not cut in a mohawk, and he didn’t have any tattoos. Bucky also noticed this Clint’s face was more open, and he wasn’t as serious and his posture as tense, but then remembered why the one back home was and glanced at this Natasha, who was alive and well.

Barton and Romanoff took them to an underground base, where the other Avengers were waiting for them, and neither Sam nor Bucky resisted—this was what they’d been waiting for. The “base” was basically an abandoned part of the subway, with several subway cars serving as dorms and a few tables to the side with chairs around them. There were a few people there; Bucky could see some of them sleeping and others just sitting around. He didn’t recognise any of them, but Sam seemed to. The four of them bypassed that area, causing everyone to stare at Bucky and Sam, and reached an adjacent room, with a big oval table in the centre. Once there, Barton and Natasha moved to the other side of the room, where two men were already standing.

One of the men was none other than Sam Wilson and the other was someone Bucky had never seen. Wilson looked exactly like Sam, except for the diagonal scar that went from the middle of his forehead to between his eyebrows. Next to Bucky, Sam seemed to freeze at the sight of the two men in front of them. Bucky glanced at him and to his surprise, Sam’s eyes were wide, but on the man standing next to Wilson, and not, as Bucky would’ve thought, on the man that looked exactly like himself. Sam went to step forward but stopped himself, mouth open with the ghost of a word. Bucky had never seen him like this, and everyone in the room was tense, waiting for his next move.

“Sam?” Bucky finally asked cautiously. Sam seemed to realise he’d been staring and looked down, then took a deep breath and with a small smile turned back to the man.

“Sorry,” His voice was softer than Bucky had expected, and it shook slightly, “you look– you look just like someone I once knew.”

Bucky studied the man that had caused Sam to react like that. He was tall, with short dark hair and a handsome face. With a quick glance from head to waist—as the rest was hiding behind the table—Bucky noticed his right hand was metal, like Bucky’s but with a different mechanism, and it reached just to his forearm. The rest of his arm was badly scarred from burns though they seemed old. He also couldn’t help but notice Wilson didn’t seem to like the attention they were giving the man next to him.

“And who are you, then?” Wilson demanded before his companion could say anything.

“We already told Nat,” Sam started, over his initial shock, and Bucky saw Natasha raising an eyebrow at the nickname. “and something tells me you were all listening.”

“It’s just a little hard to believe.” Wilson commented with a shrug. He didn’t seem particularly worried about their presence, but his eyes assessed their every move.

Wilson and Sam stared each other down for a moment. The man next to Wilson sighed and elbowed him, “Quit it.” He turned back to Bucky and Sam with a smile, “I’m Devin Riley, but everyone either calls me Riley or Falcon. Well, I guess I know your name,” he told Sam, and to Bucky he said, “but I don’t think we’ve met.”

“James Barnes,” he told the room, but no one seemed to recognise the name. “But everyone knows me as Bucky.”

Riley nodded then pointed to where Natasha and Clint were standing “You seem to already know them, as well.” Bucky and Sam nodded in affirmation.

With everyone introduced, Wilson immediately moved to business, stopping Riley from making any more conversation. Sam and Bucky had no other choice but to tell them everything from the beginning: from the Snap, to the battle with Thanos, to the others going back to get the Infinity Stones, to Steve’s solo mission and the other Steve coming back. They told them everything fake-Steve had told them. Some of the others—mainly Wilson and Romanoff—still looked reluctant to believe them, but the panic and urgency to find Steve must have showed somewhere during the explanation, because in the end they accepted to help them.

They knew Steve was in DC but they weren’t sure where, as fake-Steve hadn’t been very forthcoming on that. They all brainstormed ideas on how to get his location. With the information they had from both realities, they knew of some of HYDRA’s hiding holes but not all, and they didn’t think they’d put Steve somewhere easy to find. After a while Natasha ended up saying something Bucky had been considering in his head but not sure if he should say it.

“We know some of the weaklings. Not sure if many of them know about the situation, but we could get some intel out of them.” She shrugged. Wilson and Barton nodded, but Sam looked slightly horrified.

“You want to torture someone for information?”

“Not _torture_ , no.” She smiled, and it was a predatory smile. “But, you know. Get the job done.” She shrugged again. Bucky hadn’t had much contact with the Natasha from his reality after he’d break the brainwashing, but by Sam’s reaction this Natasha didn’t sound much like her.

“We’ll get one of them to speak.” Barton agreed. He was fixing something behind his ear, and Bucky realised what he’d thought were comms was actually a hearing aid. He couldn’t remember if the Clint of his reality had one as well.

With that, the plan was in motion. Romanoff and Barton would get them the location they needed, and they were to stay in the base with Wilson and Riley. Some of the other people there came and went, but Bucky was relieved none of them tried to make conversation. Bucky hated having to sit and not do anything, but he wasn’t used to this reality and there wasn’t much he could do, at least for now.

It took the Vigilantes less than ten hours to find two possible locations in DC, with four more outside DC. Bucky didn’t think fake-Steve had been lying about him being in DC so those four locations would only be checked as plan B. It was now three in the morning and everyone was once again at the base. There were more people there now than there had been in the afternoon and Bucky recognised a few more people. They would have to separate into two teams, but Bucky was confident by the following night they’d have Steve back. Sam and Bucky refused to be separated and so they were grouped with Natasha, Barton, Pepper Potts and a younger girl who looked no older than twenty named Kate. The girl protested at not being put in the same team as her girlfriend, who was with Wilson and Riley, but said girlfriend rolled her eyes and told her to quit being a baby. Barton snorted at that, causing Kate to kick his shin. Bucky and Sam glanced at each other, but mutually chose not to comment.

The mission was pretty straightforward. They would fly in the Quinjet and get as close as possible to the building, then they’d walk the rest of the way. Potts would use her Rescue suit—that to Bucky looked very similar to his reality’s Iron Man suit, only blue—to take visual and check the interior: for the exact blueprint, the number of people present and to assess the area. Barton and Kate, who Bucky learnt both had Hawkeye as alias, would take point in nearby buildings—Barton as sniper and Kate as backup. Bucky, Natasha and Sam would then enter the building to extract Steve.

Everything ran smoothly, and Bucky was glad the Vigilantes were used to stealth missions as opposed to the ruckus the Avengers usually caused back in his reality. As the Winter Soldier, he was used to getting in and out of any place without anyone even noticing him there in the first place. Sam let Bucky and Natasha go ahead of him, to eliminate possible HYDRA agents quietly, while he watched their six. Bucky and Sam had gone on enough missions together to be used to working this way and Natasha seemed to be able to adhere easily to any type of team dynamic.

By the time the three of them got deeper into the building, half the agents were dead and the other half were not far from it. They hadn’t seemed to be expecting any action that night, and the agents present had been mostly nobodies. They put up a pretty good fight, Bucky would give them that. Still, he’d trained with HYDRA in the past, so he knew their fighting style, and Natasha’s training at the Red Room also made her better than most. Bucky had his own rifle and all the knives he had brought from his reality, and Natasha had two handguns, plus her Bite, the electroshock weapons on her wrists. He mostly threw knives or shot on sight, and Natasha would alternate between shooting and climb on them to electrocute them. She seemed to be having fun. Sam’s weapon was mounted into one of his gauntlets, which he could shoot by closing his fist, but he also had a machine pistol at his hip.

There were a few doctors there, and Bucky shot them between the eyes without hesitation, before he had time to recognise any one of them. Natasha was impressed with how quickly he did it, as she didn’t even get to shoot any of them, but he ignored her in favour of looking for Steve in the cells they had reached.

Steve was in the very last one, in the back. It was Natasha who found him, letting them know through the comms. Bucky turned away from the cell he was about to enter and rushed to the one where Nat was standing. Steve was sitting on the floor, his arms bound with chains to the wall. His face was bruised in several places, his blond hair wet—though whether from sweat or something else, Bucky didn’t know—, and the blue janitor uniform he was wearing was dirty. Steve had his head resting on his shoulder, eyes half closed, but lifted it up when Bucky barged in.

“Buck?” Steve’s voice was weak, but he smiled and Bucky stepped closer.

“Yeah, Stevie, it’s me.” Bucky soothed and knelt in front of him, murmuring, “I’m here, I got you.” He tried to force the chains open, but they wouldn’t budge. Steve had closed his eyes again, his head back against the wall. There was the noise of someone entering the room and Bucky looked behind him to see Sam there, just inside the entrance. Natasha was standing by the door, but stepped forward when she saw him struggling to open the chains. She easily opened them with the laser on her wrist and stepped back again, leaving the room—possibly to give them space or to keep a look out. “C’mon, Stevie, let’s get out of here.” Bucky reached for Steve and helped him up, putting an arm around him and Steve’s arm over his shoulder.

As Steve finally got on his feet, he let out a chuckle. Bucky had been about to step forward but stopped, turning his head to Steve. He still had his eyes half closed, but there was a smile on his face, “Well, well, well, how the turntables…” his voice was still weak, and he paused between some of the syllables, but he opened his eyes and looked at Bucky expectantly with a smile on his face.

Bucky just stood there, frozen. He turned to Sam, “I changed my mind, let’s leave him here.”

Sam had a incredulous look on his face, “Did he really just reference The Office as we’re rescuing him?”

“I said what I said.” Steve said firmly, and finally started to walk. Sam was still standing in place as Bucky and Steve passed him to exit the room.

Bucky huffed, “Yeah, he thinks he’s hilarious.”

They were finally back in the corridor and Steve was practically walking without help by now but he suddenly froze mid step causing Bucky to stop as well and glance at him. He found him staring at Natasha, his eyes practically round and face impossibly pale. “Nat.”

Natasha didn’t say anything, but looked at him with something that resembled pity.

“It’s not her, Steve.” Bucky told him quietly. “We’re in a different reality; this is not our Nat.” he started walking again. “C’mon, we need to go.”

This time Sam and Natasha went ahead, weapons at the ready, and Bucky and Steve trailed behind them. “I know when I wake up you’re not gonna be here, Buck.” Steve muttered so only he could hear. “But I’m glad you came.”

Bucky wanted to reassure him that it wasn’t a dream, but he knew Steve wouldn’t believe him. God knows back in 1943, when it was Steve who rescued Bucky, he only really started to believe it halfway back to camp. So he stayed quiet and hoped Steve would realise it soon.

* * *

Back in the Quinjet Steve seemed to be more awake. Bucky helped him sit down, and sat next to him. Sam let them be and started a conversation with Barton and Kate. Apparently, a few of the HYDRA agents had located them and whilst Bucky and the others were inside, Barton, Kate and Potts had their own fight outside. Kate was noticeably excited as she described the fight with several wide arm movements.

Bucky and Sam had been without sleep for over twenty-four hours, but Bucky didn’t dare to even doze off. Not with Steve there, weak as he was. Steve didn’t say anything the whole flight back to the base, where the others seemed to be waiting for them. Only then did he seem to realise this wasn’t some type of crazy dream; that Sam and Bucky were actually there for him.

To thank the others for their help, they gave all the information they had on HYDRA from their reality. Bucky warned them the intel might not be completely accurate because of the different realities and how old the information was from. Still, the others seemed grateful to have something that could help them at all.

Wilson offered them a place to rest for a few hours, and despite being eager to return home, they knew they needed it, so they accepted one of the subway cars. There were two small cots positioned head to head on one side of the car, and another one on the other, leaving a narrow aisle between them. Sam locked the door—not that it would stop the others if they really wanted to get in—and then climbed into one of the beds. Bucky helped Steve lie on another and then climbed into the last one. Bucky stayed awake long enough for Steve to have fallen asleep and then fell into a dreamless sleep himself.

When they awoke, Natasha walked them back to the Quinjet, which they would use to fly to the desert. Just as they were about to get in it, Natasha called Steve’s name and he turned back to her. She stepped forward until they were standing in front of each other and said, “I’m not the Natasha from where you come from,” Steve nodded and looked down, “but I can tell you’re close to her, and if she’s anything like me, not many people get to be.”

“Was.” Steve corrected quietly. “She died, not long ago.” His voice didn’t tremble, but Bucky knew him well enough to know he was holding himself by a thread.

To their surprise, Natasha stepped forward and hugged Steve. He seemed frozen for a moment, but then leaned down and hugged her back. She let go not long after and smiled at him. “Goodbye, Rogers.”

“Bye, Nat.” With one last smile, he turned back and got in the Quinjet.

* * *

On the flight back to Arizona, Steve explained that he’d been in captivity for over a month, though he wasn’t sure if his calculations were right. Fake-Steve had been in their reality for a month, so Bucky guessed the time in both realities was parallel. He also told Bucky what they’d done to get the information out of him—even if they got close to no information—and Bucky regretted not having burned the whole building down. After fake-Steve had left for the other reality, they had mostly left Steve alone, but the doctors had apparently taken the opportunity to try and figure out the difference between their Steve’s blood and this one’s. Bucky thought of the flasks of blood he’d seen by the doctors and was glad to remember he’d destroyed them all.

In turn Bucky told him about the events back in their reality, from fake-Steve arriving, to them figuring out the truth and what they did to get the real Steve back. Steve asked if they knew how he had gotten in the wrong reality, and since Sam was piloting the Quinject, Bucky had to be the one to explain it. He tried his best but Steve still looked confused so he gave up and told him Bruce would explain everything he needed to know. In the end Steve just shrugged and told him he was just happy to be returning home.

“It’s really not a dream, is it? You’re really here?” Steve asked then, eyes hopeful. Sam was most likely listening in on their conversation, but he didn’t say anything, letting Bucky handle the situation. He knew Sam used to work at the VA and even ran his own support group, and Bucky wondered if it wouldn’t be better to let Sam do it, but then realised that no, it had to be himself doing it. Steve was his best friend, he could handle this, goddamn it.

Once upon a time, Bucky had been a very tactile person; quick to touch someone on the arm or the shoulder or even their hands. He’d also been good with words. He wasn’t very good with either, now, but he still tried—wanted to try. He leaned against Steve, who was sitting next to him, and let their arms touch from shoulder to elbow. Then, he put his hand on Steve’s knee, and tried to not feel self-conscious that it was his metal arm. Bucky didn’t say anything, but Steve didn’t seem to need him to. He sighed contently and nodded, leaning his head back on the wall of the Quinjet with his eyes closed. After a moment, Steve rested his hand atop Bucky’s and Bucky looked up at him in surprise. He still had his eyes closed and his face was relaxed. Bucky glanced at Sam, who was still not paying attention at what was going on behind him, and back at their hands. He couldn’t help but let his lips form a small smile, and let their hands stay like that for the rest of the flight.

Once they got to Arizona they shrank the Quinjet once again, and Sam took the Pym Particles out. Steve looked much better now that he had rested and didn’t need any support standing up. In a count down from three, they all activated the particles and disappeared.

* * *

There was no one there when they returned. The machine was set in place, but Banner and Fury were nowhere in sight. Bucky gave himself a second to panic, thinking something might have gone wrong, then he remembered it had been over a day since they’d left. The others couldn’t just have stood there waiting for them. The image of Fury standing there in the desert with his arms crossed and sunglasses on waiting for them came to Bucky’s mind and he almost laughed.

The three of them stepped down from the platform, and Bucky and Sam guided Steve to the entrance of the SHIELD facility. Banner must have set up a camera somewhere near the machine because both he and Fury were already waiting for them just inside the entrance. Banner took Steve for a check-up, despite Steve’s protests that he was fine, and Sam stayed back to brief Fury on the mission. Bucky didn’t think he’d be needed for briefing, so he followed Steve and Banner, not willing to stay apart for long. He worried for a moment that Steve would feel suffocated with him practically hovering, but Steve seemed relieved, so Bucky finally relaxed.

As he worked, Banner told them fake-Rogers—and Steve, of course, snorted at the nickname—was taken to the Raft and locked up. Bucky didn’t trust the government with someone like fake-Rogers, but he guessed they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

Once everything was taken care of in Arizona, they got ready to return to New York, which reminded Sam of something. “I still don’t get it why fake-Steve gave me the shield. What did he get out of it?”

“You really gotta stop calling him fake-Steve.” Steve commented but didn’t have a good alternative when they asked him, so they would keep calling the guy fake-Steve.

“It’s that or old-Steve. Or wrong-Steve.” Bucky told him and watched Steve laugh, feeling pride well up in his chest at having caused that.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Sam kept going. “Now that you’re back, you’ll be Captain America again.” Steve was quiet for a moment, causing Sam and Bucky to look at him in question. “Unless… you don’t want to?”

“I don’t know, Sam. I’ve been doing it for so long, I’m not sure I know how to stop.”

“Maybe you don’t have to,” Bucky told him. “But you don’t have to be in the spotlight all the time.”

Steve looked thoughtful, “Yeah,” he turned to Sam, “I think you should keep being Captain America.” He didn’t let Sam start to protest, before he continued. “It wasn’t me who gave you the shield, and I don’t begin to guess the reasoning behind him deciding to give it to you, but I do agree you’re the best person to pass that mantel to.”

Sam looked at a loss for words but then smiled and said, “Thanks, man. I appreciate that. What are you gonna do next, though?”

“Well,” Steve smiled and shrugged, glancing at Bucky. “I remember mentioning a trip somewhere. Maybe it’s time.”

Bucky wondered how he could ever have thought that old man had been his Steve. His smile had never been truly genuine, and there was something about this Steve that made Bucky wish he’d never stop smiling. He smiled back at Steve and shrugged as well, “Maybe it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!!


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